09/03/2017 World Business Report

to the country's president in exchange for support on a big

Congress in Guatemala has demanded an investigation into the cause

of a fire at a government-run children's home, which killed

Police said a group of youngsters appeared to have set fire

A United Nations report on the civil war in South Sudan has warned

that the country is moving closer to genocide.

It describes deliberate starvation and bombardment of civilians

and hate speech by political leaders.

An Australian man who pretended online to be the singer

Justin Bieber has been charged with more than 900 child sex

offences after persuading fans to send him explicit pictures.

That's the news. He's the business. -- Here's.

On trial: The Crown Prince of Samsung.

At stake, the reputation of Asia's richest family -

and one of its most successful companies.

Plus: Attracting the high flyers - airlines show their business class

Hello and welcome. This is World Business Report. I am Sally Bundock.

Also in the programme, producer prices have been rocketing in China.

Is that suddenly we should be concerned about? Rico Hizon will

make sense of that for you in a moment.

But we start in Seoul, where the Trial of the Century is getting

started. The head of the biggest company, Samsung, is on trial for

bribery. Samsung might be a household name, globally, but his

boss is not. So what we know about him? He is the boss of the company,

Jay Y Lee, but is known by South Korean media as the "Crown Prince of

Samsung". That is because he is the only son of the chairman, Lee

Kun-Hee, who was convicted of bribery and tax evasion himself, but

was pardoned. So Jay Y Lee has been in charge since his father had a

heart attack in 2014. He has been the de facto boss. So the Lee family

are phenomenally wealthy. You can see the figure behind me. Forbes

Magazine ranking them Asia's richest family last year for the second year

in a row. Worth almost $30 billion. It puts Jay Y Lee's personal wealth

at $6 billion. Samsung is a very important company in South Korea. It

has been key to the country's economic rise from one of the

world's poorest after World War Two, to one of the riches. It has group

sales of $240 billion and it accounts for around one fifth of all

of the country's imports. So what is Jay Y Lee accused of? He was a brief

explainer for you. Let's get some analysis from Timothy

Marton, from Seoul. He writes for the Wall Street Journal. They give

being on the programme. Get a sense of how important is trial is. Judy

Maco Verratti is not too much hyperbole calling it the Trial of

the Century. You have the most powerful Asian business leader and

Park Geun-hye, involved in a trial that has been an issue with South

Korea for generations. Bribery, embezzlement, and for the large

part, these larger bodies, chaebols, have been able to avoid punishment

because they were so critical to the economy. How the judges rule this

will have a lot to say about the future direction. I was go to ask

you that as my next question. Do you think this could be the perfect

storm of an impeached President coming at the same time as this

trial, mean there will be finally a shift in the way business is done in

South Korea? Some of those shifts were already in motion, but the

political situation, combined with the impeached President, does create

an environment where we could see substantial changes to the chaebol

system. Again, the irony here is that Jay Y Lee himself had been a

chaebol Ross Fowler. He told people that he did that think the system

should be around, privately. -- chaebol reform. But this is become a

legal headache. In the meantime, Tim, the company itself does not

seem to be affected by the scenario. The share prices continue to go up,

profits continue to go up... Yes. Jay Y Lee is the third generation

leader. People have said he has more of a... He is not involved in day to

day operations. He is a big pitcher strategist. Look, the country has

great business lines, so whether the Topman is in charge or not, those

will proceed. The company is in a lot of top industry. -- top man. To

Marton, we appreciate your time. Of course, he will be writing about

this. We will be talking about this for some time. -- Tim Martin. Let's

stay in Asia, where the producer price inflation has been soaring in

its fastest rate for almost nine years, since the Beijing Olympics.

We go to Rico Hizon. Good to see you, Rico Hizon. This has caused

Marcus to fall, quite a bit, hasn't? That is right. We are seeing

producer prices rising more than expected. You have the price of

steel and other raw materials continuing to gain. This has boosted

profits for industrial companies. But if you take a look at the

consumer price inflation, Sally. It could more than expected since

January 2000 15. PPI and the CPI are going in separate directions, and

this is also leading some analysts quite puzzled about the strength of

the broader economy. The producer Price index jumping by 7.8% in

February from just 6.9% in January. So economists are saying that the

soaring darker was largely driven by a proactive fiscal policies. --

dater. They refer to a sharp increase in government

infrastructure and a railing into poverty 's markets. Once established

as higher, the PPI and higher consumer prices, we could see a rise

in interest rates in China, which could in fact on growth and impact

growth in the region as well. She is back Thank you for joining us.

We're also at the ITB travel show in Berlin,

where the world's premium airlines are competing for the attention

of the business traveller, with the very latest

You can see that bind me here. -- behind.

Corporate passengers are lucrative for the airlines -

but growth is sluggish, with more people travelling

for pleasure than for business, and less need for face-to-face

meetings thanks to internet conferencing.

A tug on the heartstrings for lovers of luxury travel at this year 's ITB

tourism show in Berlin. As a Middle Eastern airline unveils a new

business class aeroplane seat. It is part of an industry push to bring

home comforts to the skies. What you noticed immediately is very slick

technology and slick engineering. -- notice. This seated area is pretty

flexible, and should you wish to, you can share food with your

friends, who are just sitting on the other side, all members of the

family, of course. And at the touch of a button, deceit goes completely

flat and turns into a bed. The idea behind that is to create more living

space around the business class, creating absolute privacy, and

creating a corporate jet atmosphere, if you are travelling with your

passenger. In these times where there is a focus on cost, our

business is happy to pay that is? As a matter of fact, you are just

plenty business class fare. Corporate travel is big business.

German firms spend 50 billion euros a year sending their employees

around the world. Of course, as a worker, you want all of the add-ons

you can possibly get, but it might be that your company takes the view

that as long as you have a seat back and go flat, and a television, you

will get a good enough nights sleep to work the next day. It is a

culmination of the needs of the traveller who likes to travel and

business class, of course, but when it comes to price and paying for

those travels, the corporation is the one who dictates that. So we

need to find a balance between luxury and say travel and the cost

of travel. Travelling for business is all very well, but what people

really want is as much luxury as they can possibly afford when they

are travelling for leisure. I know when it comes to me, but I want all

of the features imaginable, plus, of course, when I am in the air,

complete privacy. Tanya Beckett, BBC News, Berlin.

Do you get the impression she is a little high maintenance? We love

her. She was the perfect person to send. These were the markets. Japan

were strong upright that inflation figure that came out of China that

Ricoh has already told you about. That is why Hong Kong is having such

a tough day. -- Rico. I will season. -- I will see you soon.